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Posts Tagged women in science

October 15 is Ada Lovelace Day, founded in 2009 to celebrate the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Ada Lovelace, born in 1815, wrote several programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a design that was never built but that foreshadowed today’s computers.

October 15 is Ada Lovelace Day, founded in 2009 to celebrate the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Ada Lovelace, born in 1815, wrote several programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical ...

I mean, it’s only taken a few decades since LEGO first launched minifigures in 1978 to get a female scientist on the roster. And sure, the total gender ratio of minifigure models is roughly 4:1 in favor of men–and the female ones that do exists seem excessively pink. (Last year, our friends over at SPARK protested the way the LEGO Friends line reinforced gender stereotypes.)

Eesha Khare is an 18-year-old high school senior. She’s going to Harvard in the fall and uses her cellphone. Typical 18-year-old girl stuff. Oh, she also invented a supercapacitor that charges cell phones in 30 seconds! According to Clutch:

“Eesha Khare, 18, invented a fast-charging device called the supercapacitor. It is miniature energy-storing device that can juice a phone to full charge within 20-to-30 seconds.”

Apparently she developed the device because she got tired of her phone not being charged. When my phone is dying, the best I can think to do is log off of Twitter for a while. This young woman is sharp!

Not only that, she’s doing it with great intentions and ambitious ...

Eesha Khare is an 18-year-old high school senior. She’s going to Harvard in the fall and uses her cellphone. Typical 18-year-old girl stuff. Oh, she also invented a supercapacitor that charges cell ...

According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going through Congress attracts riders and amendments, becoming ever more ponderous.

Without the Higgs field, as it is known, or something like it, all elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light, flowing through ...

Last Friday, I dedicated at Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah to women in science, and from the looks of the comments section and my email inbox, we have a fair few scientists in the Feministing community. It was great to see so many of you sharing stories and advice about how to survive and thrive as a woman in a male-dominated field. XKCD has some advice about that, too. Well, XKCD and Zombie Marie Curie:

This cartoon is so spot on, and not just because Radium is in fact deadly. When there are so few women in a field, the pressure to be great is immense, not only because you feel the need to defy stereotypes about your gender’s inferiority, ...

Last Friday, I dedicated at Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah to women in science, and from the looks of the comments section and my email inbox, we have a fair few scientists in the Feministing community. It ...

Twelve years ago, MIT released a study on the status of women faculty in science, finding “subtle but pervasive” discrimination. According to the New York Times, this study led to a national focus on increasing opportunities for women in science. Now, the school has performed an evaluation that shows that progress has been made and highlights some of the challenges of addressing identity-based discrimination in an academic environment.

For one, there have been concrete changes in the number and position of women at MIT. From The Boston Globe:

According to the new report, the number of female professors in MIT’s School of Science has increased to 52, from 30 in 1999; women now make up 19 percent of its ...

New research shows that women with PhDs in science who become mothers have less of a chance of entering a tenure-track position, and those that are in one are still 27 percent less likely than men with children to receive tenure. Family-friendly policies, anyone?